Carpetblogger

Bayram Questions Answered!

Reader Bulent, who always answers questions we didn't know we had, fills in some of the blanks on the Kurban charity option:

Here's another fun bit for you. You probably have noticed by now the deep mistrust Turks hold for organized charities asking for donations. Turkish Red Crescent has a solution for that this year. You pay them for your 'kurban,' they slaughter it in front of a notary public, film it, make a VCD of the slaughter, and send you the 'evidence' along with 1/2 kg of the meat ('kavurma', not the spoilable fresh version). The rest goes to the poor. They figure this scheme will give them an edge over the other charities who don't provide such high-tech evidence of the good deed actually getting done. Here's the link: Haber 7.

On the other hand, when I mentioned this to a local shopkeeper he immediately theorized that they probably have three or four films of various animals getting slaughtered and a VCD duplication machine. Just has to be so, y'know, because, 'they' are always out to con us.

Carpetblog is service journalism at its best!

Drummer Accountability Project (DAP)

I've started a new NGO. It's called the Drummer Accountability Project. So far it has achieved measurable results: The drummers who asked me for money on Friday were the same ones I photographed earlier in the week.

Did I give them money? Ha Ha. Would you reward people who stood underneath your window at 3 am every morning for a month banging drums? At best, wouldn't you ask them for payment or alternatively, pelt them with eggs? As a grant-giving organization, DAP believes that its grant recipients need to strive for sustainability and cultivate local funding sources.

DAP also noticed that the local drummers are building capacity for future activities. As they paraded through the neighborhood, their intern -- who based on the tone of his voice was probably seven -- was calling out the prayers.

 

The drummer in question's face is in the lower right

Catch you next year, Davulcu.

Know Your Neighborhood Drummer

Helpful reader  Bulent Murtezaoglu offers a valuable piece of pre-Bayram advice: Know your drummer!

"He'll go door to door asking for money tomorrow. At least you know what yours looks like. It used to be not that uncommon for several to show up, each claiming he's the real one and the others are fake. The joke below is actually based on real pamphlets you'd occasionally see:"

It's a picture of Mr. Prime Minister Erdoğan and the top says "I am this neighborhood's drummer. Don't give money to any other drummer." I don't know what the rest says, 'cause my Turkish regresses daily. I bet it's funny though!

I'm so glad I got up at 4am to take a picture of my drummer. I would hate to reward an imposter for waking me up every single day between 3am and 4am this month.

Iyi Bayramlar indeed!

Since Ramazan is Almost Over

Couples sit beneath the reddening grape arbor, sipping tea in the garden beneath the minaret of the green Firuzaga mosque. On every corner, greasy doner kebabs slowly rotate in front of glowing orange heat panels, providing a quick lunch to doctors in white coats from the nearby public hospital. Tobacco smoke mixes with car exhaust on Sirasilever Caddesi. The casual observer of my Istanbul neighborhood might not know it’s the middle of Ramazan, Islam’s holiest month.

“Should we not eat outside today?” I asked my lunch companions, wanting to avoid offending those who are keeping the fast.

“Why not? It’s Cihangir! No one’s fasting here.”

Turkey’s polarized secularist-versus-Islamist political environment, some residents disregard their neighbors’ religious traditions without a second thought. As home to many of Istanbul’s artists, writers and free-thinkers, Cihangir probably has one of the lowest proportions of fasters in the whole city. For Istanbul’s secular elite, fasting during Ramazan is a tradition left to the pious.

But walk a few blocks downhill from Cihangir Square, into the warren of alleys threading between decaying wooden houses and decrepit Greek mansions perched on the hill above the Bosporus, the atmosphere changes noticeably. The number of headscarves and chadors increase. Most small cafes are closed because few eat in public during the day.

Iftar – the evening meal that breaks the daily fast -- falls at around 7:00 pm Aromas from the evening’s meal drift from open windows throughout the afternoon, dizzying to even those who haven’t eaten since, well, lunch. A line of men and children completing the final, pre-feast errand forms outside Ekmek Dunyasi (“Bread World”), the bakery that sells the best bread in the neighborhood. Their task is to collect the freshest, warmest Ramazan pide possible.  No fast can be broken without the round, flattish loaf sprinkled with black sesame seeds. Ekmek Dunyasi stays open 24 hours a day during Ramazan to meet the demand.

As the sun sets lower, people scurry to get home and a hum of excitement comes from every apartment as dishes and silverware are hurriedly set on tables and cranky children bicker and squawk. When a short, choppy ezan calls from the city’s thousands of minarets, the alleys fall silent. Iftar has begun.

Even in Cihangir, there’s one time of day, however, that not even the most devoted Kemalist can ignore Ramazan: 3:30 am. That’s when the “Ramazan Davulcusu,” or Ramazan drummers, make their way up and down the hill, providing a free-wake up call for fasters who want to be sure they have enough time for sahur, the pre-dawn meal that will sustain them through a long day with no food.  They do this every morning during the holy month of Ramazan.

The drummers, usually young men with booming voices carrying double headed drums (davul), are an anachronism left from the days when no one had alarm clocks. Because they are, to some, a nuisance, a few municipalities have banned them. Still, many Istanbullus remember them fondly from their childhoods or from their old lives in the village and are happy to give them tips.

Others give them tips to stay away.

Sometimes the davulcusu wait until 4:00 am to begin their rounds. Other mornings, inexplicably, they start at 2:30 am. They are expert at taking short breaks between staccato bursts of drum beats and mani (rhyming couplets), just long enough to allow me go back to sleep. Sometimes, it sounds like they position themselves for hours beneath my street-facing second floor bedroom window.

The davulcusu don’t discern between fasters and non-fasters. They wake the pious and pagan alike, gleefully rousting at 4 am the people who smugly sit at Cihangir’s outdoor cafes at noon, smoking and sipping tea.

The most unforgivably trite description of Istanbul is that it’s a bridge between continents, where east meets west. Not only is it a cliché, it oversimplifies the mix of cultures and attitudes that collide and co-exist, with varying degrees of success, every single day.  In the spirit of Ramazan, when Muslims are supposed to examine their lives and reacquaint themselves with the virtues of compassion and forgiveness, Cihangir’s believers and non-believers have figured out ways to annoy, if not completely accommodate, one another. It’s a step in the right direction.

Let's agree to disagree

Iyi Bayramlar!

Ramazan started this morning, and when I was told that the "Ramazan Davulcusu" would walk around the neighborhoods at daybreak beating drums to wake people up in time for Sahur, the morning feast before the day of fasting, I suspected that was probably a quaint tradition that lived on villages, but not in cosmopolitan Istanbul.

Since double-sided drums are being sold at the local Carrefour, I shouldn't have been surprised when, at 4 am this morning, about five young guys walked all around the neighborhood beating their drums and singing Ramazan carols. Um, 30 days of 4 am wake up calls with drums? Sorry I'll be missing that!

I have other fond Ramadan (Ramazan is the word in Turkish) memories:

In Azerbaijan, I was traveling in the regions with a young staffer who was fasting. We stopped to meet with the head of the regional government and the police chief and other assorted criminals in Goycay, the pomegranate capital of the known universe. It was a typical Azeri meal with multiple courses served underneath the pomegranate trees at a wedding palace, with ample vodka and complicated toasting. The two people at the table who were fasting sat quietly while plate after plate of lula kabob and fish shashlyk was passed around the table.

The local ex-comm began the toasts. He started by toasting the beautiful women at the table (pretty much me), the martyrs, those who couldn't  be with us because they are dead -- all the usual suspects. He finished up by offering a toast to those at the table who were fasting for Ramadan. That pretty much sums up Azerbaijan for me, right there.

Last year, I was flying from Kabul to Dubai at iftar time (when the fast is broken, at sunset). The flight attendants handed out plates of stringy mutton and rice, accented with raisins and dates. Most passengers just stared it (so did I, but for different reasons). As the sun set over the empty dryness of the desert, the Ariana pilot announced that, since we were flying over Iran, fasters were obligated to wait to break the fast until Iftar cannons in Iran were fired. A few minutes later, the pilot told passengers they could eat.

So far, Ramazan in Ukraine has gone largely unremarked upon, except for this nugget. The meal on AeroSvit  (an enemy combatant in one of the worst cases of FSU rage in which I have ever engaged) had a little tag with a pig with a line through it. "How atypically sensitive," I thought. Then I looked at the meal. Now, it could be the case that the Ukrainians (or, more likely, the Turks) have learned to simulate ham absolutely perfectly -- identical in taste, appearance and texture. But more likely, Aerosvit served a plate of ham to a bunch of Muslims during Ramazan.

Ramazan bayramınızı kutlar, nice mutlu bayramlar dilerim!

Masallah!

Eyup Sultan Mosque and tomb is one of the most holy sites in Istanbul. It is the burial place of Ayoub al-Ansari, a standard-bearer and advisor to the Prophet Mohammed who was killed in the Arab siege of Constantinople in 670. Located in one of the city's most religiously traditional areas, Friday prayers attract a great number of worshippers and pilgrims. Families spend the afternoon sitting in the shade and around the fountains after passing through the Iznik-tiled tomb to pay respects and participating in Friday prayers in the cool, airy mosque.

Neither pilgrim nor worshipper I, it was more interesting to watch all the young boys who stopped by the shrine to celebrate their sunnet, or circumcision.

Yes, indeed! Circumcised between ages 6 and 10. How do you like 'dem apples? Sunnet marks the kid's passage into manhood and his formal entrance into the faith. It is a very big deal for families. The little victims get all dressed up in shiny outfits, with a fur trimmed cape, spangled cap and jeweled scepter, and drive all around town in processions stopping at holy places. Many have sashes that say "Masallah," which is a wonderfully complex word that means a lot of different things, but particularly joy and praise that god has willed a positive event. Turks, and Arabs especially, use the word in every other sentence.

The little boys are all excited and nervous, and are generally treated like little pashas to an even greater degree than usual.  This fat kid (or one that looked just like him) puked up his breakfast in the middle of shrine after imbibing in a tin cup of holy water.

It was a hot and sticky afternoon and the boys had things on their minds other than the blessings conveyed by complete strangers.

No boy of any age wants his granny hanging all over him.

This little dude's foreskin is probably safe.

After the snippage, the boy returns to his home, gets propped up on pillows and waited on hand and foot while visitors stream through offering their wishes and gifts of gold.

Mullette

In the last six months, three people I know have died violent deaths in Baku, -- two of which were in traffic accidents. The other was a murder, but you can read more about that on other sites. This means that I have been to a lot of funerals.

In Islam, mourning is a drawn-out process. If you're interested in reading about funeral ceremonies in the 24 hours after a death, I wrote about it back in January. The 7-day, 40-day and one-year anniversaries of the death are marked with prayers with friends and family. The recently-deceased are also remembered on Thursdays.

I used to look skeptically at my staff when they asked for time off to go to a funeral. No longer. Going to funerals in Baku could take up all your time, especially if you know a lot of people who ride in cars.

Funerals are often held in big tents that are set up in the middle of the street. Inside, mourners sit at long tables, while the Mullah and the victim's family sit at a head table, like at a wedding. The only evidence of the dead person is his or her picture hanging on the wall. Almost always, these tents are open only to men, but one funeral I attended was for someone who led a more progressive lifestyle, so there was tent time for men and for women.

Tea is served, as is special funeral plov with chicken, dried apricots and raisins (plov a greasy rice and meat dish that is served throughout Central Asia with hundreds of variations). The Mullah recites prayers from the Koran and people cry. No one talks.

Sick minds here often speculate about the number of "collateral funeral deaths" which are caused when a typically maniacal Baku driver on his way to a critical backgammon game at the chaikhana (tea house)flies around a corner at a high speed, maybe going backwards, and plows into one of these 40 foot long tents filled with mourners.

After the first funeral, I was hoping that I would get invited to a wedding before I had to go to another.

No such luck.

My office manager's husband was killed in a car accident while I was in the States. He was Turkish and left behind a 24-year-old widow and a 2 year old son. She had never met his family, but flew to Turkey with his body for the first funeral and burial.

I went over to her house on Thursday with the other women in my office for a funeral meal. It was just the three of us, her mother and sister, and a mullah. Instead of a tent, it took place in their tiny living room in a Soviet-era high rise apartment block in Baku's sprawling, anonymous suburbs.

Since this was a funeral for women, the Mullah was a woman. I had never met such a person before.

She wore a headscarf and a high-necked dress and had gold teeth, but that didn't really distinguish her from many other Azeri women. After some chitchat that my beginner's Azeri couldn't keep up with, she moved into 30 minutes of reading from the Koran in a wailing chant.

I assumed that I was the only one who didn't understand the prayer, but since it was in Arabic, it was just as foreign to the gals on my staff. One lamented that she wished she knew the words but given that she grew up under the Soviets, she never learned them as a child. It's like never learning the Our Father or Nicene Creed.

After the Mullah finished, the mourning meal was served. Once bread is placed on the table you can't leave, so I settled in for a lengthy meal, afternoon meetings be damned. Anyway, it was much more interesting to chat with the Mullah.

The Mullah grew up in Masalli, which is a town in Azerbaijan's conservative south, closer to the Iranian border. Although she never attended a Madrassah (Islamic school) her father forced her and her siblings to learn the Koran. She resented it, until her own husband died and she began reading the Koran at funerals to support her children. I couldn't tell how old she was. Azeri women age very quickly but I guessed she was probably in her late 30's.

When she mentioned that all Azeris should know the words to the prayer, my friends looked the floor.

Another one of my young staffers plans to get married in September. Azeri weddings are the holy grail for expats because they are so extravagant. I hope that I get to go to that before another funeral. My track record suggests otherwise.